Chapter 5
Lunch was without a doubt was the nice and safest part of the day in the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics. Just food and friends.
Luz usually spent this time with Gus and Willow in the school cafeteria. But today, it was Wednesday. So, the human girl was in the Room of Shortcuts with the Troublemakers, eating their food and having nice chat.
"...and then Eda puts the Slitherbeast to sleep." Luz just finished talking about her adventure in the Knee.
The multi-track kids stared at their friend, they love hearing about Luz's adventures with Eda.
"Wow, I really envy your living with Lord Calamity." Viney said, taking a bite of her squid taco.
"Yeah...I can't believe she take you to the Knee and the Motionless Bowels Swamp!" Jerbo said with a hint of jealousy in his voice. "What I wouldn't give for sludge or few seed from that swamp."
"Well, it's your lucky day then." Luz said, rummaging through her bag. "I found a box of seed when me and Eda were looking for the Entoloma Milkcap. I thought you and Willow might like it. It's your share of the seed." She handed him a box.
"Wow! Thanks Luz!" Jerbo admired the contents of the box while Barcus came to Luz with his lunch box.
"Ruff.(Luz what's in that thermos?)" He asked, sniffing it.
"Eda's homemade two-headed chicken noodle soup."
"Bark.(I'll trade you my meat salad for it.)" Barcus said with a grin.
"Deal."
The moment was interrupted by the loud sound shifted to their ears and four loud thumps pinged through the floor of the room.
"I think it's coming from the cafeteria." Jerbo said, putting down the box.
"Maybe someone started the food fight." Luz said and opened one of many doors, which then open door on the ceiling of school dining room.
And at the same time, they were in shock of what they're looking at. They saw the destruction and rubble site of room, the Hexsiders lying there on the floor. Most of them were unconscious while a few were also badly injured.
"Wow... Did not expect that..." Luz commented in shock and concern.
Barcus growled in concern. "Bark.(By the look of it, I'd say this isn't an food fight.)"
"Either way, we should check on them now." Viney said.
Jerbo drew a spell circle and long vine fell down from the open door, stopping just above floor.
Luz and the Troublemakers approached to the destruction site as they all checked on the survivors. Everybody was alive, pretty banged up or wounded but alive.
"We'll go find Principal Bump." Jerbo said as he and Barcus move towards the door.
"It's a good id-Gus!" The teenage human came across to Gus, who was on the ground. She helped and put him leaned against the wall. He had a wound at the temple.
"Gus?"
"He's hurt, but it's not serious." Viney said as she draw a spell circle around his head and then his wound was gone. They both called and woke him up.
Gus grunted in pain as he regained his consciousness, "L-Luz?"
"Yeah, that's me. What happened here?"
"Some kind of crazy troll called Nox appeared out of nowhere, and started attacking us all. He was angry, and he was yelling something about the First Elders. It was really scary." He pressed knees close to his chest and began to slightly rock back and forth.
"Don't worry, he's gone."
But as soon as the words left Luz's mouth, thunderous roar of anger echoed throughout the school and then the large troll just showed up at the door and looked at them.
Luz and Viney both gasped while Gus froze like a deer in a headlight.
"It's him!'
Nox grinned at them like a jackal before he got out a big iron hammer, charging at them.
Then it all happened at once.
Luz leaned over as if to get something from the floor.
"I'm too young to die! Gus whimpered, his eyes closed and his arms swung around his head.
Viney began to draw spell circle.
The big anthropomorphic figure leapt through the nearest window and punched Nox.
The hit sent a stone creature flying several feet away, hitting the wall and leaving some cracks in it.
The three teenagers looked at their saviour.
He was very much resemble a demon. He was large and well-built, on his head there were goat's horns curved backwards. He had hooves instead of legs; he also had a long, massive bladed tail that resembles the shape of a scythe. His skin was yellow-brown and the pigment of his eyes glistening sharply like finely cut emeralds. He had blue metal blades protruding from his wrists and shoulders. He also had big bat wings on his back. He wearing a brown leather kilt with a wide black belt, which has a triangular silver buckle, black and gold wrist braces and black, red, and golden armor on his stomach.
Nox managed to surprisingly get up and he stood her ground and stood up on his feet.
"Who are you?" The troll asked, frustration evident in his tone.
"I'm Tatsurion the Courageous." He swiped his hand across the air like he was outlining a title.
"When I finish with you, they're going to call you "Tatsurion the Fragmented"." Nox picked up his hammer and tried to slam it onto Tatsurion, who just catches it with ease as he crushes it with his bare hands.
Then Tatsurion and Nox roared in anger as they charge and rammed at each other. They both held each other's hands tightly while pushing their enemies off for few moments. The muscular troll snarled as he managed to push the demon back and down to the floor. He groaned and struggled to push him back. Luckily, Tatsurion slammed a headbutt against Nox's head before punched on him by guts and chest for few times. He then swung his two combined clasped fists at the large troll to drop and land on the ground. Nox groaned in pain and dizziness.
"Do yourself a favor, fella, give it up." Tatsurion said as he looked to the troll.
"Or I might just do this!" Nox took a deep breathe before fire a cloud of ash at Tatsurion.
The demon started coughing and wouldn't stop while hot ash burns his lungs.
Nox smiled at Tatsurion when the two giant stone claws covered with green liquid drawing out from the troll's hands. Then he stabbed winged demon in the chest.
"AAARGH!" Tatsurion let out a great agonizing scream of pain before he fell to the ground.
"Your head would look pretty decorative over my mantelpiece."
And just when the stone creature could finish Tatsurion off, a fireball flew through the air and hit him square in the back of head.
Looking behind, Nox found the source of the fireball: human girl.
"How dar-" He was cut off, after Viney throw a bunch of blue spaghetti at him. It hit its mark, the face of the troll.
Then Nox grabbed the table that stood next to him and throw it at the teenagers over with a roar, making the small group ducking in fear.
Then a troll roared louder in anger as he charged right at the Hexsiders.
They distanced themselves away from him. Viney quickly grabbed Luz's hand as she rolled to her left while Gus moved to his right.
Gus got up and glared at the troll, which roared wildly at him. So, he summoned a dozen illusions of himself to confuse the troll.
"Great! More small people to crush." Nox crushed one of illusions with his fist, cackling maniacally.
Original Gus and his copies gulped before they begin running like hell from the school cafeteria.
"Come back in here, you little brat!" Nox roared as he ran after the group. Forgetting about Luz, Viney and Tatsurion.
"Are you okay?" Luz asked in concern after the troll disappeared from sight.
"I can't feel anything below my neck." Tatsurion answered as Viney went up to check his wound.
"I can cure the wound's from a spike, but I can't do anything about the paralysis. I don't know much about those things. Poison and antidote are Barcus' thing."
"But I might be able to help."
The two witchling looked behind them.
The source of the voice was a young woman. She was a moth-like hybrid with cyan skin, grayish white fur on the top of her shoulders to the bottom of her arms, navy-blue wings which have four segments. She had two pointed light-pink eyes, long blonde hair that frames her face with her bangs parted on the right side and a braid placed over her left shoulder, and long pointed feathered ears. She had also purple marks on her chin and around her eyes.
She wearing a lightly armored purple dress with a arctic blue ribbon around her waist and black fingerless gloves. At the top of her dress, she had a pale blue-greyish gem in the shape of a triquetra, and she also wearing purple long boots with black straps around them.
"You were supposed to take care of poisonous gas in the others part of building! And I told you I was handling the troll." Tatsurion sound like a father bashing his daughter.
She approached him, "The gas is neutralized, all teachers'll wake up in an hour. Besides, let's face it, big guy. You need help."
"Hi, I'm Samantha, by the way." She smiled at two girls as she opened her wings and floated them right above Tatsurion's chest. And then she shook them. A sparkly dust begin fall off the wings, covering the entire demon's body.
"Just give it a few minutes to work. And-"
She was cut off by a male a voice cry, "HELP!"
"Its Gus!"
With a speed that could rival a blue hedgehog, Luz and Viney made their way down the hallway, leaving the moth girl and a paralyzed demon.
"Go help the witchling. I'll be fine." Tatsurion said.
Samantha nodded and ran into the school hall to see scene that she would not expect.
Nox was under attack by a young Griffin while Luz threw fire balls at the troll. Neither a Griffin nor the human girl couldn't hurt him. But they irritated him.
"All right, that's enough!" Nox grabbed a Griffin by the tail and threw it against the wall.
"Puddles!" Viney kneeled next to Griffin. Luz and Gus do the same, concerned about the creature.
"I'll kill you now, stupid brats!"Nox threw himself at them with crazy eyes.
"No, you won't!"
The moth woman waved her wings to create a massive gust, knocking Nox backward and into a school lockers. But he stand up quick and swung his fist with the spike on the three kids.
Samantha had just enough time to jumped in front of the troll's fist.
Her wings flared out and stuck straight up. She shook her wings and materialized a light blue, air barrier with a glowing spiral pattern, much like the pattern on a back of her wings.
Nox's fist just hit the barrier with a loud wham.
"You can't hide behind it for ever." He said, spitting on the barrier.
"Well, I'm not going to do that."
Something seemed to get her attention as Nox ear's twitched at a weird sound, before magic ray hit his back.
The stone troll roared in pain as he turned his head to back. He found a man stood before him.
"Safdar, I'm not complaining, but what took so long?" Samantha smirked.
"Well, because I was busy disposing of you-know-what."
The trio peek out of the Samantha's wings to see a lean, muscular man with pearl gold skin, and tattoos on various parts of his arms. His tattoos appeared to emanate a faint, silvery glow.
He wearing a lightly armored dark, sleeveless, thigh-length coat that that includes a split waist cape reaching just under his knees. The waist cape was split in three places. The coat has an open tab collar with the dark gray hood that shrouds his face. He had a greyish-brown pants as well as moderately armored black boots. He also had leather fingerless glove that was decorated with two brightly glowing violet lights on the back of his left hand. And a pendant with a silver triquetra hanging around his neck by a black filament.
"Let's do an easy way, Nox," Safdar suggested calmly, "Give up the fight, and I'll go easy on you."
Nox snarled in anger as he tucked himself together and started to roll.
"Why do I bother to ask?" The man asked himself as put his fists together to summon his...staff?
It was more like a cross between the witch staff and a spear. His staff range was in color from pale brown to golden-yellow almost white. With a magical totem of the manticore atop a wooden staff, and the crystal sharp blade at the other end. The head of the blade spirals down the upper shaft becoming less sharp on the lower shaft. The staff was also carved with intricate mystical symbols.
Safdar's eyes flashed silver under the hood and then he slammed end of his staff into the floor.
A flash of light filled the school hallway for a split second, and as soon as it had dimmed, Nox was standing, literally frozen. A layer of ice-like crystal covered every single inch of his body.
"And we have a winner." Samantha lowered her barrier before turned her head to group of teenagers, her ears pressing back.
"Holy Chrysalis! What happened to you, my poor darling?" She asked, leaning down to squint at Luz's ears. "Your ears... does it hurt a lot? Can you hear me okay?" The woman's eyes, deeply crinkled around the edges with concern, search Luz's face with desperation.
"I hear you well, and my ears are fine."
"But..."
"Luz is human. Their ears are round." Gus explained.
"Human in an inhuman world? And you can use magic. That's weird on a number of levels." The moth-like woman said and then she looked back at Safdar.
He had a big black scorpion-like creature in his hand. A man made a sudden motion with his left hand, whirling his arm in a tight circle over the predatory arachnid.
"What is it?" Samantha pointed out the creature in man's hand.
"A reason why Nox attacked Hexside." Safdar said, releasing a now normal looking and small arachnid. "And by the way,do you know where Tatsurion is?"
"I'm here." Tatsurion came around the corner. Each step look heavy and uneven, like he could fall over at any moment.
"Well, I have to say I am surprised that you didn't dealt with Nox."
"I was winning until this troll poisoned me and I couldn't move. He would have killed me, if not these brave witchling help." The demon pointed to three to the Hexsiders. "Thank you very much."
"You're welcome." Luz said.
"I don't mean to be rude, but who are you, exactly?" Viney asked.
"Better for you if you don't know." Safdar said before teleported himself and his friends.
A/N: Do like this chapter? Let me know what you're thinking.